Tom Kitt (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

I will refer to the personal identity system in place in eastern Europe. A number of recent accession countries have a personal identity information system. The phenomenon of leapfrogging is quite common where technology is involved because of the rapid pace of change. One of the main reasons for our slower pace of progress has to do with our ability to process identity information. Countries that are performing well, many of which have come later to the e-Government space also have a tradition and legacy of national identity systems. The priority must be the protection of identity and other personal information to ensure a high degree of trust between public service organisations and the citizens using public services in their business or other activities. We are working hard on this issue. Any system introduced must meet this requirement if it is to be trusted by citizens and if it is to afford the kind of privacy protection people expect. This issue surfaced in the recent review of Reach and is currently being addressed by the Department of Finance.

There have been assertions in some quarters that the transfer of Reach to the Department of Finance is some sinister plot to kill off the project. Reach was originally an agency of the Department of Social and Family Affairs and was set up to promote the use of the personal public services number, PPSN, and the public services card, PSC. In 2000, it was mandated by Government to build a public services broker, PSB, which was a number of components working together, but not necessarily in the same place. It included some information repositories on public services for citizens and businesses, a client registration and authentication facility, a transaction management facility, an electronic payments facility and a data vault which was intended to hold and protect personal information on behalf of clients.

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